The Tacoma News Tribune | April 8, 2023
Opinion Editorial by SEIU 775 member Matthew G. from Tacoma
My partner suffers from a chronic illness. After his diagnosis, I became his professional in-home caregiver represented by SEIU 775, the caregivers union.
We pay a disproportionate amount in taxes to fund the very services designed to help us. Under Washington’s tax system, lower-income workers, like myself, pay for what we must use to get by — like public transit, healthcare, schooling and housing.
The poor are locked in a vicious cycle — relying on unacceptably underfunded public infrastructure services, funded almost entirely by ourselves, and insufficient to elevate us beyond vulnerability.
HB 1473/SB 5486 would place a 1% tax on the financial property (exceeding $250 million) of Washington’s ultra-wealthy, so that working people who created that wealth can see the fruits of our labor take form in our own communities. We could see the vulnerable housed, healed and educated, and see our neighbors with disabilities truly cared for with fully funded programs and services.
Our communities need what we are owed by the extremely wealthy.
They will not feel the loss, but we will feel seismic shifts in our quality of life.